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I was reading that Tau players like to use stealth suit teams as marker light platforms. Is this effective? For the points it seems prohibitive. 3 suits with 6 marker lights runs you about 270 points, that is really expensive for 3 marker light hits, even if they are move and shoot and stealth protected.

You could pack in 3 broadsides with kit for that amount.

What is the general consensus on the most efficient method of getting marker lights into a Tau list?

Elite:
Stealth Marker Team
Pro: Stealthy - (hard to hit)
Con: Expensive, competes with XV8's for Elite Slot.
HS:
Skyray
Pro: "Free" ML.
Con: Compete with Railguns for HS slot.
FA:
Forgeworld Tetra
Pro: cheap, mobile ML support
Con: Forgeworld, Vehicle Squadron rules

Pathfinders
Pro: Cheap.
Con: Low LD

Troop:
Fire Warriors
Pro: you have to take one squad anyway
Con: if you are shooting with the ML, your squad is exposed, 1 ML/Squad, unlikely to hit.

HQ:
Forgeworld Suits
Pro: More ML's
Con: overpriced.

Yeah, I was making a Tau list in consideration of my next army and the problem I was having was finding a cost efficient method of getting marker lights in the list. It seems that there isn't any. I think I will just go with pathfinders.

Tau need a rewrite on the rules pretty badly. They were very powerful in 4th, but 5th has not been kind to the little fish faced fellas.

Thanks for your input, it is appreciated.

I've used markerlight stealthsuits a few times. Considering they have jetpack rules, they can use the markerlight after moving and still have their assault move (Relentless). They're going to be more mobile than any other tau marker unit. However, where they gain in mobility, focusing them as a markerlight unit limits their shooting capability. The only tactical advantage stealth suits have are against pure close combat units without fleet (such as striking scorpions or ork boyz), ie jump in and out of shooting range while staying out of assault and far enough from any shooty bits of the army. However with this strategy, using the markerlight limits the firepower of the squad itself, so if the marker misses, three shots with the burst cannon or an instant kill with the fusion blaster is gone and keeping them away from fire means fewer markerlights on what a battlesuit, firewarrior or hammerhead could take. But, if it hits, you can more than make up for the three fewer burst cannon shots with more hits for your other units.

I did the mathhammer on the stealth by the way, the most frequent roll is going to be a 7, giving the enemy 21 inches. So, unless all your suits are atleast 21 inches from an enemy, you're screwed. With jump packs its easier to keep out of range though.

And at the end of the day, Stealth suits are right expensive, and just one markerlight isn't worth the cost of the suits. Pathfinders are 22 to 32 points per marker shot, considering how many you take. Its 128 to 176 points for four to eight pathfinders (12 per shas'la (48 to 96) + 80 for the devilfish) or 110 for the stealth team (2 shas'ui (60) and Shas'vre (50)). Make your choice, a highly mobile single markerlight for 110 points, or 4-8 markerlights for 22 to 32 points each. More markerlights means more negated cover saves and more hits for your fire warriors and Battlesuits.

In short, go with pathfinders.

Thanks for the breakdown, that is pretty much how I was looking at it. The mobility of the stealths is appealing but they just flat out cost too much. Pathfinders and their low leadership appears the better path to take.

Reecius wrote:Thanks for the breakdown, that is pretty much how I was looking at it. The mobility of the stealths is appealing but they just flat out cost too much. Pathfinders and their low leadership appears the better path to take.

What Barikir is missing are the three Stealthed Marker Drones you can take for an additional 90 points. The unit puts out four Markerlights at 200 points every turn, no matter what. They can manuever around terrain while firing them, and can dance in and out of the 36" mark making them impossible to target.

This is in comparrison to the 8 Markerlights you'd get from the Pathfinders, who will have exited the board by turn three. Pathfinders are fragile, and they are difficult to use because of it. They can't move to get a better position, so you have to really rely on your deployment. On top of that, 8 Markerlights is way move than you'd ever need on a single target. I find the 4 the Stealthsuits put out to be the magic number, just enough for you to strip cover saves or boost BS to 5. Markerlights aren't meant to be used on everything, with every unit, every turn. They are meant to be the little boost a unit needs to wipe out the critical target that turn.

The key to using a stealth marker team is to pretend they don't have guns for most of the game. You didn't bring them along for 9 str 5 AP 5 hits, you have Fire Warriors (And SMS, and Burst Cannons, and gun drones...) for that. You brought them along for maneuverable and survivable marker light support, so play to that strength. Sit them 42" away, jump forward to 36", hit something with 7 marker lights, then jump back to 42". Barring equipment such as blacksun filters on the opposing army, the stealth team is now invisible.

The downside, as mentioned previously, is the extreme cost. Pathfinders remain the most cost effective source of marker lights.

The reason 8 marker lights are not too many is that only 50% of them will hit on average. 4 marker light hits are generally the magic number, enough to completely strip cover saves from a unit in range of your Helios team, or boost two fire warrior squads to BS 5 for a FoF maneuver.